Singer 02 - Long Time No See (38 page)

“Where are you taking this, Judith?”

“Where do you think I’m taking this?”

With his fork he made tracks through the tomato sauce on his plate, around, rather than through, the pasta. “That Courtney was some kind of ... Whatever they’re calling it these days. Psychopath? Sociopath?”

“I think so. I know I shouldn’t take that one incident with the Crunch-Munch sale in high school as emblematic, but it showed a coldness that’s scary.”

“But that’s not fair to Courtney. She isn’t around anymore to defend herself.”

“I know. But if she were a sociopath, she’d probably be articulate and have a smooth defense—the way she convinced her high-school principal that Ingrid Farrell stole the Crunch-Munch money. Courtney didn’t have a conscience.”

“How do you know?” he insisted. “If she did steal the money, maybe it was bothering her all these years. What could she have done? Gone back to wherever she came from—Washington—and confessed? That’s not realistic. She had a husband, kids, a position in the community.”

“I know. Stable family life. And she wasn’t violent or argumentative the way a lot of wackos are.”

“Right,” Nelson said.

“But if she’s turned out to be such a good person, full of remorse but unable to apologize without jeopardizing everything, then how come she got involved with Emily?”

Nelson reached out and put his hand over mine. “But that’s just a theory, Judith. All you have on that is that when Emily was supposedly on vacation, the cell phone that was used to call her office was also used to call Courtney’s house. And also that about six years ago the two of them went to the same conference in Baltimore.”

I set down my fork so I could cover his hand. “A hand sandwich,” I noted. He smiled. “I know you’re being kind, Nelson. Thank you.”

We took our hands back. “It’s okay.” His tone was gentle. “Listen, don’t be hard on yourself. Nobody, including me, would want to give Phil Lowenstein bad news.”

“I want to give you another theory.”

“Sure.”

“It’s about little women,” I began. “Not the book—”

“The movie?”

“Be quiet. You know, I saw pictures of Courtney in the papers and on TV. She wasn’t a beauty, but she was really good to look at.” Nelson nodded cautiously. “Then I went to try and convince Greg to hire me, and don’t shake your head and mumble ‘I can’t believe you did that.’ I did it. Period. End of discussion.”

“Not quite. You were a jerk to do that, Judith, knocking on the door of someone who’s pretty obviously a murder suspect. Now it’s end of discussion.”

“Fine. Anyway, I was sitting in his living room and on the table next to me was a framed photograph of Greg and Courtney in tennis clothes. They looked adorable together. Both were clean-cut, athletic looking, but there were nice contrasts, too. He’s dark, she’s fair. He’s tall, she’s short. I remember, her head was resting against his chest. Actually, he’s not all that tall. She was just short. My guess is about five-feet-one or so.”

Nelson swirled the wine in his glass. “Uh-huh.”

“So I was thinking again about that picture. And also, when I went through her closet, which I don’t want to dwell on because just the thought of it probably makes your cop hackles rise, whatever hackles are. Anyhow, her shoes were a size six.”

“Well, that solves the case, doesn’t it?”

“You know who else was short? Emily. When Beth and Roberto were talking about her, they said she only had one suitcase for her trip. He offered to put it in her trunk because she was, you know, a little woman, but she said she could manage. And remember the ‘little gray mouse’ Steffi talked about?”

“Where are you going?” he demanded. “Do you think she was carrying body parts or gold bars in the suitcase and didn’t want anyone to feel how much it weighed? Or she had little bitty Courtney inside? Maybe Courtney went to buy apples but then drove down to New Jersey and Emily, who hadn’t gone to Australia, killed her, then brought her back to Long Island and slipped the body into the pool.” His manner wasn’t sarcastic, but tough-minded, the devil’s advocate.

“No, I’m not saying that.”

“Good.”

“I’ll get there, Nelson. Just hear me out. Emily had brown hair. But after the summer, she started letting it grow. And voila! It started getting blonder. Beth told me she suddenly looked like she had some life in her face.”

“A boyfriend?”

“Could be. Or maybe she was all charged up about the new life she was going to have, financed by whatever scheme she and Courtney had cooked up, and yes, Nelson, I know it’s just a theory. Here’s another theory: Maybe Courtney was giving her a makeover.”

“Okay.”

“Little Courtney was making over Little Emily to look like Little Courtney.”

He was gazing right at me, but this time it was no staring contest. He was looking for an answer. I think he was close to realizing what I was trying to say, except he was slowed down by simultaneously reasoning it out and thinking of reasons why I couldn’t be right. “What are you trying to say? What do you think was going on?”

“I think Courtney was creating a substitute Courtney. I think the body in the pool—”

“Impossible!”

“—is Emily Chavarria.”

“D
ON’T JUST SAY
‘impossible.’ Think about it,” I pleaded with Nelson. “Emily coming to Shorehaven and shooting Courtney doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes a hell of a lot more sense than—”

“I’m talking about character. Personality. Whatever you want to call it. When I found out there was an Emily and decided there could be a link, I thought, Hot damn! She did the dastardly deed. But the more I learned about her, the less likely she seemed to be capable of carrying off this kind of a murder and cover-up.”

“What about the money side of this, if there was one?” Nelson asked. “Was Emily capable of that?”

“Intellectually, without a doubt. But I bet even there, Courtney took over and was calling the shots. But what Emily did or didn’t have is find-outable. Even if all her money disappeared from her bank and brokerage accounts, you can find out how much was in them and when she took it out.”

“You think her timing for withdrawing everything would have to be before that bigger company took over Saf-T-Close?” He seemed not so much attentive as tolerant, letting me express myself.

So I did. “Sure, she wanted to get all she could to buy that stock she knew was going to go way up. But forget her for a second. Look at Courtney. She was assertive, she was ambitious. She was athletic, for God’s sake. Do you think Emily the mouse would have been strong enough to kill a Courtney wherever and then get the body into the pool?” He was shaking his head: pure speculation. “Give me a break, Nelson, come on.”

“I’m giving you a break, believe me. But what do you want me to do? Throw out any rational thought that comes into my head because it doesn’t fit your theory?”

“No. Not at all. Just give me a little more time.” It struck me that the request for more time might sound obsequious or pathetic, as in “Don’t go home to your wife yet.” To make up for that, I heard myself breaking into my I-am-Woman-hear-me-roar voice that was so thunderous I unnerved myself. “Listen to me! Emily was obviously struggling with that suitcase.” I quieted down a bit. “That’s why Roberto offered to help her. She wasn’t that strong. But I bet if you check out Courtney some more, you’ll find out she could lift ... whatever Emily weighed.”

Nelson pushed his chair away from the kitchen table, sat back, and crossed his legs in that triangle shape men make, so their privates remain on display in case anyone has doubts. He gave his mouth a curl to the side that I knew meant: I hate to say this, but ... “Fingerprints, Judith. Remember fingerprints? The ones in Courtney’s house and car they got after she was missing match the prints they were able to get from the body.” I started clearing the table, not to run away from the conversation but to organize my thoughts. “And another thing,” he said.

“What?” He drew back his lips and tapped on his teeth. They appeared to be in good shape. “Teeth?” I said. “Oh, you mean the dental records.”

“They seem to go with the teeth from the body in Courtney’s pool.”

I made a big deal of putting the leftover pasta in a plastic container so he’d know I’d cherish it for days to come. I was beginning to see why prudence suggests not mixing romance and business; it’s hard to think straight when desire and pique mix. “Don’t worry,” I said, too brightly for my taste, “I can fit all of this into my grand synthesis of unprovable hypotheses.”

He lifted his glass in a toast. “I’m a good listener.”

“Think about the little gray mouse again. She was in Courtney’s house.” Seeing he was about to interrupt, I added: “Okay, she
may
have been in Courtney’s house. I bet if you gave Steffi some more pictures of Emily she could identify her even more positively.”

“So Courtney did what?” Nelson inquired tactfully. “Wiped every surface in the house so only Emily’s prints would be there?”

“Probably, although I’ll bet if Nassau County’s finest had really been conscientious, they would have found other little prints from some other little adult. Don’t forget, when they picked up those prints, they were looking for a missing person, not a murder victim. And they probably did it days or even weeks after Courtney disappeared.”

“We’ll never know, will we?”

“Maybe not.”

“What about the car?” Less tactful now, and on the road to bluntness.

“The car ...” I said slowly.

“Because you yourself told me the au pair said that gray mouse who might be Emily ... Her car was in the driveway.”

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t drive Courtney’s car some other time. Look, I’m Courtney, okay? I don’t want my own prints on my car. So I wipe the steering wheel, the window buttons, the gearshift, the seat belts, the car seat for the kid really, really well. What else? Oh, the door handles, inside and out, the back gate on an SUV. Now every time I use it, I either wear gloves or something over all my fingertips. Pieces of Band-Aid or something.” He mumbled either “genius” or “ingenious” in a sardonic tone which I naturally ignored. “I also have my husband drive it,” I continued. “But at some point I ask Emily to drive. Maybe instead of going for apples I met her in a central location and said, ‘Hey, I’ve been driving car pools all day. Give me a break,’ or some such thing. So to the Missing Persons cops, the Land Rover will look like a normal family car because the parents’ prints will be up front and the kids’ and their friends’ prints will be all over the back. No prints from a kidnapper or carjacker or killer or whoever supposedly snatched Courtney.”

“I like that,” he said. “Very creative.”

“Oh, go stuff it!”

“You’re making Courtney out to be a master criminal.”

“No, not a master criminal, but a damn good one. Why not, Nelson? If I can imagine all this, she certainly should be capable. She’s a
magna cum laude
graduate of Princeton. That means she was more than smart in college. She was organized. Meticulous. You could see it in her house. Everything was
done
. Every lampshade was the platonic ideal of that particular kind of lampshade. She had botanical prints matted and framed and hung on a ribbon. There wasn’t one empty table; every single knickknack was planned, not too many, not too few, size and color-coordinated. It was a flawless, soulless house.”

He rose from the table and kissed me just as I was coming up from fighting with a bowl that didn’t want to go in the bottom dishwasher rack. “Is that it,” he asked, “or is there more?”

The night before, when I’d momentarily wakened for a bathroom intermission, I’d promised myself that whatever happened in this relationship, I was going to behave like a grown woman—not a middle-aged girl. No innuendos. No cutesy hints. I would not refer obliquely to his marriage in the hopes he’d respond with a declaration that included the words “getting a divorce” and “redecorate your big bedroom upstairs.” If I wanted to discuss his status, I’d promised myself, then I had to say it straight.

Thus, I stifled the emerging Are-you-sure-you-have-time-and-don’t-have-to-get-home? and told him: “I’ve got a lot more.” We sat back at the table, clear now except for the glass of parsley. “The gift Courtney had for analysis, for looking at all the angles of a problem, was sharpened at Patton Giddings. Numbers crunching, evaluating businesses. Remember, her work was good. It was her people skills that didn’t make the grade.”

“Okay, but what about the dental records?” He caught the look in my eyes. “Oh no. Don’t tell me you’re going to say she switched them, Judith Eve Bernstein Singer.”

“She did switch them, Nelson Lawrence Sharpe. The X rays that they slip into those cards? Emily’s has got to be in Courtney’s and vice versa. I bet if you locate Courtney’s dentist, you’ll find a new female patient ... probably in September or early October. A new patient who was about Courtney’s height, with blond streaks, a little younger than Courtney. Is that creative, too?”

He had that annoying tender look people give to klutzy, big-footed puppies. “Yes.”

“Good,” I responded. “Well, we can solve this difference of opinion very easily.”

“Excellent. How?”

“Get Courtney’s dental records from Olympia, Washington. I bet they won’t match the teeth on the body. Or Emily’s records from Leesford, Oklahoma. They will match.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” he said softly, and shifted in his seat. Now he was looking away from me, viewing the wall with my arrangement of framed California fruit-crate labels, although I don’t think he saw them. After what seemed a long time but was probably only a minute, he turned back to me. “I don’t know what to say. This is a theory. A long shot.”

“What’s the downside? You annoy a couple of dentists?”

“I’d need a subpoena to get those records. And this is an interstate matter.”

“Can’t you wangle a subpoena? Or just make a call and be charming?”

“I’m not charming.”

“You are, too.”

“I’ve got to think about it,” he stated with finality. Then he stood.

“By the way, Nelson, there may be another way to solve our difference of opinion.”